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Just imagine this as a character in a story:
a person who reads in public places and hates being spoken to.
My first question is: why is this character reading in public places if they hate being approached by people enquiring about their book? Why aren't they reading at home? Okay, maybe they have a large family and can't find peace at home, so go to a library, or sit on the loo (I have a friend who reads in the bath and while running the bath.)
The point is that this character has holes for the reader, so the author has to go to great pains to explain why they read in public in the first place.
No access to a library, or a bookshop (great places for reading), or a bathroom, or bedroom, or a park with few people there, or a shed at the bottom of the garden or on an allotment. I'm single and live with three cats in a house of my own so it's easy for me to find quiet, unless the pusscats need to be fed, but I'm the youngest of five so know what it's like to live in a large family (though our house was largish). As I child I used to lie in bed late at the weekends to read Enid Blyton's Mystery books. My brother spent ages on the loo (he had his own bedroom too).
So the character who reads in public and hates to be spoken to or approached by other people while reading could perhaps find somewhere with no other people in it in order to read undisturbed.
For the record, I quite like speaking to people on the bus, though I travel in taxis now and chat to the driver, I sometimes get cheaper fares that way. If I sit in a tea shop, I quite like it when there are no free tables and I double up with someone who begins a conversation. And I'm the type of person who has conversations with corner-shop keepers when they're not busy. If I saw someone reading, I'm sorry to say that I would be really tempted to engage them in conversation, but I'm quick to take a hint - a few grunts and I would shut up.
"Miserable old sod," I'd think to myself while tucking in to a cream cake.
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